Chapter 222 (1): The Offense and Defense Reverse

That night, in the dining room of the Lando Estate, the Lando family gathered for the first time after three days of not seeing each other. Auston hadn’t wanted to join the dinner, and Veronica was reluctant, too. However, they could not say no to Silvia, so they attended.

Wayne blushed.

(⁄⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄⁄)

Why are you blushing, you shameless man?!

Veronica thought.

You’re pushing it!

Auston cursed.

Auston saw his meeting with Wayne this morning as the greatest defeat in his life. Once he calmed down... well, he couldn’t calm down. The more he thought about it, the more furious he became. He didn’t want to see Wayne anytime soon. It would be better if he never even heard his name.

Auston was still subject to the bone-deep pain, which he had to suppress with the silver coin of fortune. After analyzing the facts rationally, he concluded that Wayne wasn’t the Goddess of Darkness’s chosen knight, either, but had gained the power of the knight in a different way.

Or Wayne had stolen the Darkness Knight’s power.

Were Wayne the chosen knight, Auston would’ve personally handed Twilight Despair to Darkness’s chosen. No matter his motive, it was an unequivocal fact. Then, based on the goddess’s promise, his curse would’ve come to an end. Game cleared. He would never feel pain again.

Yet he did!

The facts led Auston to speculate that Wayne had the ability to steal a chosen knight’s power. It happened with Darkness, and it had to have happened with Death, too. He was always a fake knight.

𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Auston kept his envy to himself. He guessed that Wayne’s ability had something to do with his original bloodline.

That alone wouldn’t be enough, though. There had been others with the original bloodline in the Chosen Land before, and none of them were known to have the same power. The key had to be his imitation of an ancient god. They were the mysterious embodiment of taboo and terror. The potential of Wayne’s evolution was limitless.

But that led to another question!

Auston remembered his first meeting with the Death Knight. It was last July, on the River Thames. Wayne had already gained the power of the Death Knight then. However, he met the ancient god and started imitating Them with his original bloodline on Dragonheart Island, mid-August. The timeline didn’t match.

It would make more sense for Wayne to be Death’s chosen. Then he stole the power of the Darkness Knight with his original bloodline.

But a goddess wouldn’t have two knights at the same time. If he were chosen by the goddess, the Death Knight in Palis had to have turned his back on his faith and thus lost his knightly honor, yet the Death Knight in Palis remained!

And judging by Wayne’s confidence when he made the bet, it was far from his first time stealing the power of a knight. He had clearly had multiple successes in the past and was certain that he would win. That was why he went all in.

He cheated!

Auston rehashed his theory. Wayne’s ability to steal a knight’s power had nothing to do with the original bloodline. That was only an excuse to distract people from the truth. He was hiding a greater secret—a secret that allowed Wayne to switch between faiths freely, even fooling the deities.

That made Auston think of Mona, the secretary who did everything Wayne instructed. Auston speculated that Wayne had fooled the Church of Heavenly Father in the same way, and Mona wasn’t so much a spy but a bodyguard assigned by the church.

Those who wielded Holy Light were all despicable, so Auston would even make the bold guess that Mona was the church’s gift for Wayne. Maybe they had told him that the clergywoman was untouched, and he was welcome to break her since she could be replaced.

There was no such thing as a Heaven Knight or a Hell Knight. The two poker cards were both manufactured with Auston’s money power. He only created them because of his obsessive tendency; he needed them to fit in with the other knights of faith.

Analyzing the history of the church, Auston guessed that Wayne had fooled the church by pretending to be an angel. If he could pretend to be a chosen knight, he should be able to play an angel, too.

Auston’s scalp tingled. The lies weren’t the scary part, but the potential exposure of the lies. Even with his endless riches, he wouldn’t be able to buy enough toilet paper to clean up the messes Wayne would leave.

The aftermath would leave too big a hole to be mended! The entire Ministry of Magic wouldn’t be enough to fill it, much less the Lando Estate alone.

Auston thought he was audacious, but compared to his heir, he was practically a saint, his track record as pristine as a sheet of blank paper.

It was too late to change anything, though. Wayne and the Lando family were now a packaged deal, certified by the Windsor royal family. Out of a hundred random denizens, ninety would believe that Wayne was his illegitimate son, and ten would believe that they were brothers. There was no other possibility.

Thus, Auston had no choice but to clean up this mess, no matter how impossible it seemed.

Auston couldn’t believe it. He was the one person in this family who hated Wayne the most, yet he always had to clean up Wayne’s mess after something went wrong. And to prevent a greater mess from being made, he even had to prepare tissue in advance.

Had he found himself an heir or a job?

Watching Auston quickly walk away, Wayne couldn’t feel better. This was life! But it still wasn’t enough!

“Master, Auston seems quite antagonistic to me recently. He has been scowling at me for days.” Wayne put on a hurt look as if he didn’t know what he had done wrong.

“Maybe it’s because of stress from work. He’s always like that, suddenly going into a fit every now and then. Once you get used to it...” Silvia grumbled, but when she noticed the troubled look on her student’s face, she huffed and said, “He needs to learn. He’s always brooding. Go to the study and check if he’s alive, Megan. If he is, tell him to stay in the study. We’re having a talk later.”

“Understood, Mistress.” Megan nodded, giving Silvia a pitying look.

Poor woman!

Then she gave Veronica the same look.

Poor girl!

But she realized that there was someone else in the same situation—herself.

Poor me!

***

After dinner, Silvia took her daughter and student to her personal study, creating a soundproofing barrier with a wave. Goddess knew who she was wary of, but it certainly wasn’t Megan.

“I’ve looked into it. The auditors sent to Londan by the headquarters will arrive in the next few days. I don’t know the exact date. In fact, they may have arrived already...”

Silvia explained what the auditors’ role entailed. They would be in charge of judging the applicants for Holy Maiden or Anointed One, giving them a score based on a combination of criteria, including their power, appearance, and morals. Those who had passed would become official candidates, while others would be dismissed.

Not everyone could be a candidate.

Silvia based her analysis on her experience of the process: “To prevent each district from putting on an act, the auditors are usually divided into two groups, one known and the other unknown. They will score the applicants individually. The secret auditors are strictly required to collect information personally, and their scores are weighted higher in the end...”

“Since the process is vulnerable to tampering, the secret auditors would mostly be members of the Order of Nature at headquarters to avoid bribery...”

The Order of Nature consisted of Gold-ranked elite mages of the church, led by the goddess’s knight in the human world. They were first-tier combatants in the Chosen Land and the most powerful of the Church of Nature, their loyalty to the goddess unquestionable.

“Mother, if the chosen knight can already receive the goddess’s oracles, why go through the trouble of selecting the Holy Maiden...” Veronica asked. Then, glancing at Wayne, she added with a huff, “Or the Anointed One?”

“Good question.” Silvia turned to her student. “Wayne, explain.”

“A god has two sides. The good side brings the followers light, and the bad side brings the heretics destruction. The two sides combine to make a god. This is true for the deity of any church.”

“The Holy Maiden or Anointed One represents god’s good side, tasked to unite followers and spread messages. Followers see them as their god’s spokesperson.”

“Conversely, a god’s chosen knight is the black glove for the dirty work. There is no overlap between the oracles given to the knight and the Holy Maiden or Anointed One. Both can exist at the same time.”

You sure know it all!

Veronica pouted. She would like to have a brain like his.

“Good explanation, Wayne, but you should choose your words more carefully in the future.” Silvia smiled stiffly. “Like the bad side. Other gods may have one, but not the Goddess of Nature. She treats all fairly and kindly, the heretics included. Do you understand?”

“Is that so?” Wayne’s eyebrows furrowed in obvious confusion. “Master, you don’t know that I’ve been as careful as I can. Auston put it much more harshly when he taught me.”

“What nonsense has he been teaching you?” Silvia asked furiously, her voice rising in pitch.

“Uh-oh, I shouldn’t have said that.” Wayne covered his mouth hurriedly as if he had made a great mistake. He stammered, “Master, I promised Auston that I wouldn’t tell you, or he would slander me before you and Veronica, falsely accusing me of having multiple girlfriends.”

(눈_눈)

Megan stared at the door. A certain someone had sent her here to eavesdrop, and somehow, she wasn’t surprised by what she heard at all.

What a coincidence. That someone was in the study, waiting to badmouth Wayne.